Major Korean exchange uncovers $200 million in dormant assets: the forgotten wealth of early entrants

[Crypto World] On January 2nd, South Korea’s well-known crypto trading platform Bithumb announced a remarkable data report—over 2 million accounts on the platform hold more than $200 million in dormant customer assets.

Specifically, the total balance of these inactive accounts is approximately 291.6 billion KRW (about $201.8 million). The most striking figure is the size of a single dormant position: the largest dormant asset is valued at about $284,000, with a dormant period of 4,380 days, nearly 12 years. Even more astonishing is that some of these “zombie accounts” have seen their holdings’ returns soar to 61,000%, meaning a 610-fold increase.

What does this reflect? It points to the earliest crypto participants who entered the market around 2009-2013. They bought during the initial market explosion and then… never came back. Maybe they forgot, maybe they abandoned their accounts, or perhaps they simply can’t remember they even had this money.

Bithumb’s move is to launch a “Forgotten Asset Search” initiative, regarded as an important part of customer protection efforts. They plan to directly notify eligible account holders and assist these users in recovering their accounts, helping them rediscover digital assets that may have been sealed away for years.

This event also serves as a reminder to current participants: regardless of whether your holdings are in profit or loss, remember to keep your account information secure. In the next decade, someone might be surprised when flipping through old records and exclaim, “I actually have a dormant account worth a few million.”